Within the field of data communication there is often a need to transmit and receive information or data between different electronic components within an environment. The environment may be geographically localized, such as, for example, a building, an automobile, an aircraft, or a boat. Also, the environment may be geographically dispersed, such as, for example, across multiple cities, countries, or continents. Such data transfers may be done in a variety of different ways and using a variety of different media. For example, electrical signals may transfer data as electricity within electrical wires, or optical signals may transfer data as light within optical fibres.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need to develop improved systems and methods for exchanging data between different electrical components.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/315,234 having publication no. 2003/0168939 discloses a method to actuate a fiber-Bragg grating (FBG) using piezoelectric actuators. In this method, the displacement of the piezoelectric actuator will induce a strain in the FBG, resulting in a shift of the Bragg wavelength (λBragg). A suitable application of this device is in optical communications for the controlled switching or filtering of a channel within a specified bandwidth. The piezoelectric actuator is driven by applying effective voltage versus time profiles to the piezoelectric actuator coupled to a fiber Bragg grating to vary strain in the fiber portion containing the grating in order to switch the selected wavelengths of light reflected and/or transmitted by the fiber-Bragg grating. The effective voltage versus time profiles are selected to rapidly change the strain in the selected section of the optical fiber in such a way so as to compensate for effects of creep in the piezoelectric actuator due to the application of voltage thereto and to obtain convergence to a substantially fixed strain in the optical fiber in a pre-selected period of time. This same approach may be used in other applications where on/off type movements are of importance.